Betanumerical
Veteran
Can someone have a stab at what it renders the map/overworld/walking around bit at?.
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2009/041/946860_20090211_screen011.jpg
Image Quality and Framebuffer Speculations for WIP/alpha/beta/E3 games *Read the first post*
- Thread starter Farid
- Start date
Can someone have a stab at what it renders the map/overworld/walking around bit at?.
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2009/041/946860_20090211_screen011.jpg
It's just the grenade explosion I believe. I've seen a flying drone got exploded and it exerts a much denser and more convincing explosion. I'll try to find the right pic for you in due time.
It looked very low to me. I didn't have time to measure properly but the numbers I got at first glance were so low that I didn't want to post them without taking a proper look. We're talking "new record" kind of low, and I didn't want to make that call without being totally sure.
If I get chance later I'll take a proper look.
GarretASUS
Newcomer
GG already stated they are using Cell for many of the visual effects. The majority of third party games uses a load based approach with Cell. Just dedicating workload to the SPU's when they need too. Cell can offer much more than this.
the ignoramus
Regular
I've done some investigating of my own.
Looking at the following ss, you can see the explosions yielding cosmetic damage lack the duration and intensity of the explosion that decimates the structural integrity of the APC.
Sequential ss before the structural collapse of the APC:
#.5
#1
#2
#3
#4
Sequential ss during the structural collapse
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#1
#2
#3
#4
#5
#6
#7
Wipeout, at least to my eye, has very basic shaders. It's 1080p, but with a very simple/clinical look that just happens to suit Wipeout. You can see though that they are still hitting their shader limits in the pics TheIgnoramus provides. For example they didn't have enough cycles to implement soft particles hence that hard edge where the explosion meets the track. The transparency effects in some of those pics are from reduced buffers as well, most easily seen in pic#3.
grandmaster said:
Absolutely, they even leveraged quincux blur to their advantage. In the context of their game, the tricks they did make sense and work very well together. Of course, the hardest thing in the world to do now is to explain to others that what works for one game doesn't necessarily work for others
To be honest, after having witnessed many games this generation, most of them have at least some low-resolution base textures. It's really just a matter of how well the developer tries to hide each and every one of those low-res textures with high-frequency detail texture maps (which don't require a lot of extra memory). Condemned 2 (on the PS3 at least), for instance, likely has lower resolution textures than Killzone 2, but Monolith managed to use tiling detail bump maps along with specularity to very effectively to hide all of them, creating a very detailed and high-res look.
How did they leverage quincunx blur to their advantage, would you say? Also, could you elaborate on what you specifically mean when you say that what works for this game wouldn't work for others?Absolutely, they even leveraged quincux blur to their advantage. In the context of their game, the tricks they did make sense and work very well together. Of course, the hardest thing in the world to do now is to explain to others that what works for one game doesn't necessarily work for others
I'm sorry, but I don't see these vertical streaks that you're referring to. Are you talking about the orange part behind the smoke?
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Sorry, what I meant to describe were the smaller puffs/clouds of smoke within that area that are lacking any sort of detail. The streaks are the TV (my bad).
There was a better pic to illustrate the low res particle: http://ps3.ign.com/dor/objects/7484...lzone-2-20081209055122390.html?page=mediaFull
At the explosion by the sandbag, the particles are just blurry blobs.
It is just a technical detail, and they made it work well for the game. If the smoke were to linger as joker mentioned, it would be more obvious. The thread is not about what people do not notice - again just technical details... If there is a "problem" it was the memory bandwidth and blending, hence the lower resolution buffer. Clever decisions mean that you don't take note, but that is not what the thread is about.
Ok , but I am just saying most games wouldn't even have those jets of smoke let alone the after cloud as nice.
But since when do explosion effects "linger longer" in any game, or any situation? Unless you're talking about something like F.E.A.R. which has built in gameplay mechanisms to slow down time in-game. Or to create a certain "Ballet of Death" trailer...
I dunno, it kinda feels to me that some people may be nitpicking for nitpicking's sake, even more so than usual, with regards to Killzone 2 and the PS3's technical, um, shortcomings--if you can call them that. That's if we're now dissecting the game's split-second explosion resolution. If we're going to go into that extent to break down something, then can we at least have some screenshot examples from other games on other platforms, multiplatform or otherwise, to serve as a fair basis for comparison? I mean, if the argument is that particle buffer resolution is a weak trait of the PS3 hardware, then we should at least illustrate how much better other games on other platforms do it.
I dunno, it kinda feels to me that some people may be nitpicking for nitpicking's sake, even more so than usual, with regards to Killzone 2 and the PS3's technical, um, shortcomings--if you can call them that. That's if we're now dissecting the game's split-second explosion resolution. If we're going to go into that extent to break down something, then can we at least have some screenshot examples from other games on other platforms, multiplatform or otherwise, to serve as a fair basis for comparison? I mean, if the argument is that particle buffer resolution is a weak trait of the PS3 hardware, then we should at least illustrate how much better other games on other platforms do it.
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Perhaps you are in the wrong forum...
And KZ2 is hardly par for the course with respect to attention.
Why ? It is a technical detail nothing more. Leave the comparisons out because it degenerates discussion, particularly when you are not comparing multiplatform decisions, i.e. other games.
So again, perhaps you are in the wrong forum if you do not care for looking at technical details and why those decisions were possibly made, and are instead looking for what is or is not passable, noticeable, worthy of attention etc. This is all about technical decisions, and people are just looking at a high profile game. By all means, visit the KZ2 thread to discuss the game in the games section.
Whether or not something looks good or bad or noticeable to you is not what the thread is about.
Like grandmaster says, KZ2 has a 'blended and blurry' look. It relies a lot on a soft look combined with darkness, blur and noise from smoke, etc, to create a very convincing look for the gloomy polluted world they are trying to portray. For that particular game, quincux actually works. Normally you'd avoid quincux because of the blur it adds, but in KZ2's case it actually contributes to the overall look and gloom they were trying to achieve.
Statix said:
The original puzzlement was as to why SF4 needs to downscale during zoom in on PS3, so I made my guesstimate based on what I saw. During a zoom in, you would think less stuff would be visible hence I would expect vertex load to drop, so it can't be because of that. It's possible that they used a higher lod mesh in the zoom, but even still I can't imagine vertex load being an issue in a two person fighter.
So we check pixel side. What's rendered is the background, the characters, and effects/ui. During zoom less of the background is visible, but the characters cover more space on screen. If the characters are using more complex shaders than the background, then pixel shader load would go up during a zoom. But are they really that complex where it can't do 60hz at 720p? Transparencies aside, overdraw is 100% controllable in SF4, so even with expensive character shaders it should be able to handle 60hz at 720p. Then again, the lack of specular on the waterfall does seem to imply that they ran out of shader juice so I could be wrong.
After that, what's left is overdraw from transparencies (not just particles, but all transparencies like UI, etc). It *could* be the case that the zoom makes some of the transparencies cover large swaths across the screen many times over which could exhaust frame buffer bandwidth. It's known that the PS3 has a bandwidth handicap in that regard, so it seemed like a possible reason for them to have to downscale. But again, that's just my guess.
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the ignoramus
Regular
Your initial statement implied that if a KZ2 explosion was to be freeze framed, its low resolution particle effects would be readily apparent.
But to my eye, the duration and intensity of some the explosions I linked to were neither "quick flashes", nor low res.
But to my eye, the duration and intensity of some the explosions I linked to were neither "quick flashes", nor low res.
Why couldn't they simply take the performance hit during zoom-ins, and drop down to 50hz or what have you w/ v-sync? The last 60hz title I could recall playing was COD4, and even that game most definitely could not maintain a full 60hz framerate in many in-game scenes and situations.
I don't know if a few transparent elements in a scene causing a few dropped frames are a big enough problem to go so far as to implement a software scaling system in a game on a console that has no built-in scaling, which in itself introduces additional processing and additional memory requirements to accommodate both a 630p and 720p framebuffer loaded into memory at the same time for the software scaling to work.
I don't know if a few transparent elements in a scene causing a few dropped frames are a big enough problem to go so far as to implement a software scaling system in a game on a console that has no built-in scaling, which in itself introduces additional processing and additional memory requirements to accommodate both a 630p and 720p framebuffer loaded into memory at the same time for the software scaling to work.
Joker made the statement that the PS3 is inferior to the 360, and substantially so, when it comes to rendering transparencies, namely those in explosion effects. Therefore, I'd like to see more concrete evidence in corroboration of this claim, perhaps in the form of screenshots of games on the other platform that produce better explosion effects than those in KZ2. Otherwise, how would we be able to tell if the claim has any merit (in terms of real-life, in-game implementations)?
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Yes, it's fine to zoom into the specifics but it's also too easy to lose the big picture.
The environment destruction and physically bouncing debris are more important than the quick flashes to convey a sense of chaos and impact. The lens flare and motion blur will be applied over the scene anyway.
EDIT: Also, KZ2 has high res textures where appropriate. Don't see the need to waste resources on high-res textures everywhere given the already chaotic and post-processed environment. Uncharted 2 is probably a better setting to showcase texture work.
Well, the blending would be a lot more expensive than a dynamic buffer or upscaling the front buffer in software.
I'd guess they made that choice because a drop to 30Hz is a heck of a lot more noticable than a resolution drop, especially for those not out there counting pixels on still frames. If there's one thing we've learned this generation of consoles, it's that a game with a subHD resolution can be perceived as "good" or even excellent.
His comments are based on sound technical reasoning: rendering transparent particles is very costly in terms of framebuffer bandwidth due to the blending needed as well as the large amount of overdraw that typically occurs with such effects. The 360 GPU has 256GB/s of framebuffer bandwidth (thanks to the eDRAM), while the PS3 GPU has less than 1/10th of that.
Besides I think you're twisting his words quite a bit with "made the statement that the PS3 is inferior to the 360"...his comment was about higher resolution particles being more costly on the PS3 as opposed to the 360. However "higher resolution" doesn't not automatically equate to "better", there's much more to it than that.
Fair enough. Offhand however, I can't think of any real-life in-game applications, multiplatform or otherwise, where the 360 rendered higher-fidelity particles/transparencies than the PS3 (version). That's why I'd like to see some concrete screenshot examples of how this supposed technical difference translates in real-life.
I've always had the feeling that Killzone 2's particles appeared a little more pixelated than I'm used to seeing, but this is an exception to the norm for PS3 games (insofar as games I've personally experienced).
Oh-mi-god, please don't misread or quote me as misquoting joker as having said anything remotely similar to "PS3 is inferior to 360." The way I paraphrased him was essentially, "PS3 is inferior to the 360, comma, in terms of rendering transparencies."